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Looking Good—Grapefruit Juice Warrants Another Look

Nov. 24, 2014|264 views

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Do you like grapefruit juice? Every now and then, grapefruit
juice seems to cycle back into fashion as a weight-loss food. It usually feels
like yet another fad diet, destined to fizzle out like any other of a number of
extreme diets that feature a specific food that’s supposed to
promote weight loss.

But grapefruit may deserve another look.

New research shows that grapefruit juice was able to prevent
weight gain in mice that were fed a high-fat diet. Remarkably, mice gained less
weight when they drank grapefruit juice plus a high-fat diet, as opposed to
mice that drank only water while eating the same diet. Essentially, although
their diets were otherwise the same, grapefruit-drinking mice gained 18% less weight.
There’s no reason to think the weight-gain-suppression effect won’t
also work in people.

Investigators at the University of California-Berkeley were so
surprised by the results, they rechecked and recalibrated their instruments,
then ran everything again. It was no mistake. Something in grapefruit juice was
putting the brakes on weight gain. “We see all sorts of scams about
nutrition,” said researcher Joseph Napoli, “But
these results, based on controlled experiments, warrant further study of the
potential health-promoting properties of grapefruit juice.”

To ensure that all other factors were equal, scientists put extra
glucose (sugar) in the water of control mice that were drinking only water.
This meant that there were no differences in the calories being consumed
overall among the different groups of mice. One group of mice even received metformin,
a generic drug commonly used to help diabetic patients maintain healthy blood
sugar levels.

“The grapefruit juice lowered blood glucose to the same
degree as metformin,” said Napoli, professor and chair of
nutritional sciences and toxicology. “That means a natural fruit drink
lowered glucose levels as effectively as a prescription drug.”

Investigators note that there are numerous compounds in
grapefruit juice. One, called naringin, appears to regulate blood sugar levels.
But some other compound or compounds must also be at work. “There
are many active compounds in grapefruit juice, and we don’t always understand how all those compounds work,”
said researcher Andreas Stahl.